And Where Were You (While I Died?)
by Skyelah
Summary: "She says something to him, but he can't hear her now, and he realizes he can feel it. It's there, something thick and tar-like and its clinging to him, rising out of his gut and his chest and he wonders how he wasn't aware of it before now. The Darkness." He is now what he's always been. A villain, through and through. And villains don't get happy endings.


_Because while I thoroughly enjoyed 5.09, it was mostly filler and left me with a lot of questions and unresolved feelings._

 _I mean, I still have questions, and more feelings than I know what to do with, but I also have some angst-y fanfic. That'll have to do for now._

 _Ugh. Two weeks!_

 _Title from "Blue" by Angie Hart._

* * *

He can hardly breathe.

There is venom on his tongue as he spits words at Emma, and the Dark One, cursing their future together, condemning her, even as his head swims with memories of a dozen embraces, a hundred kisses, shared in Camelot and wiped from his mind by the woman who claimed to love him. Who claimed to have saved him.

He doesn't feel particularly saved now, with his heart pounding a furious rhythm in his breast, beating the words _You died, you should be dead, why wouldn't she let you die_ over and over until his head throbs the same rhythm. He blinks, and time slows, and Emma is still frozen where he spilled the squid ink over her. Zelena watches him, her smile twisted and her eyes filled with dark mirth. She says something to him, but he can't hear her now, and he realizes he can _feel_ it.

It there, something thick and tar-like and its clinging to him, rising out of his gut and his chest and he wonders how he wasn't aware of it before now. The Darkness. It cloaks him like a second skin and he can taste it like ashes on his tongue. He wants to vomit, he wants to hit something, he wants to grab Emma and take her out of here, away from this house and this witch and he wants to wrap his arms around her and wring the life out of her pretty little neck…

Wait.

 _This is wrong_ , he thinks. He's wrong, and Emma… The Dark One sheds a single tear as he stumbles back from her, hand falling to his chest like his hearts been ripped out of him again, but its there, he can feel it, and its blacker than its ever been.

"You can fight this," she tells him. "You're stronger than the Darkness, Killian. We both are. We can face this together, I can get rid of the Darkness for could, and we can have a future together-"

"A future?" He doesn't mean to sneer at her, but his words and thoughts are clouded with malice. "What kind of future could I have had with you? I'm a villain, love." He laughs, and its all Killian, though he hears them now, the voices Emma spoke of, chorusing in his head in agreement. "We don't get happy endings."

She crumbles, then, and he turns about, can't look at her, can't see her face, not when the Darkness whispers at him to sink his hook deep into her chest, tear out her heart, _it's his, she's mine, we love her, we should have her._ Zelena laughs, and she might speak, but it doesn't register because in a moment, he is inches away from her, hook digging into the soft white flesh of her throat, face inches from hers as he growls. "Shut up. Get out." She doesn't need to be told twice, and with a brief flicker of fear in her eyes, she is gone in a cloud of green.

"Killian-"

"Don't." His fist clenches at his side, and the metal of his rings digs into the knuckles on each finger, each one a life, a reminder of the Darkness that existed in him before all this, the Darkness he struggled to overcome before Emma shoved it right back into his heart again. _You're a villain,_ the Dark One in his head reminds him. _Always have been. Look who's the Crocodile now_.

"Killian, I had to save you." Emma's whisper was broken. He turned to her, and her arm twitched towards him. The squid ink was beginning to wear off. "I love you."

"I know you do, love." The door is right there, and he can't be around her right now, not when grief and anger are fighting for dominance in his mind, not when he can't tell if the burning in his chest is from fighting back tears or the last bit of humanity in him drying up in the frigid fire of the Darkness of his heart. "That's why you should have let me die."

Her hears her choked sob as soon as the door slams, and a blast of cold air hits his face, affording him brief clarity. He should go back, tell Emma that he loves her, that he wasn't lying when he said he would always forgive her. _It's her fault. She made you the thing you hate the most, what you've always been, deep down. You're a monster, Killian Jones. A villain, through and through._

He keeps walking.

"Hook!" David is jogging towards him, and Regina and Mary-Margaret look on from behind. His stomach turns at the sight of them. "What happened in there? We heard-"

"Zelena's gone, mate," he bites out, grinding his teeth. The Darkness crawls under his skin, like an itch that he can't scratch, can't dig out of his chest. "Escaped. Dark One's still in there. Squid ink. Should hold for a moment longer." It's all he can manage to get the short, clipped speech out. His head is throbbing and he hears _his_ laugh echoing in his skull, and isn't it just bloody perfect that the Crocodile is setting up shop in his head.

David frowns, and Killian's jaw clenches. "Are you alright? We heard shouting, and we wondered-"

"I'm fine, mate." His arms cross over his chest and he nods brusquely to Mary-Margaret and Regina. The latter purses her lips and cocks her head at him, and his shudders under the scrutiny. She can see it, see how _wrong_ he is now, see the twisted evil thing he is and why couldn't she see it before, why couldn't someone have told him…

He should be dead.

He needed to get out of here.

"What happened with you two in there? Did she tell you what happened in Camelot?" Killian scoffed. _Aye, she did at that, but now I'm thinking I wish she hadn't_ , he wanted to scoff, but he kept walking, orienting himself towards the dock, his ship, his rum. He needed to forget… David reached for his arm, "Killian-"

"I said I'm fine!"

He spun as he shouted it, and his hand moved of its own accord and David was sent sprawling backwards, tumbling over himself before landing with a crash against the front porch steps. Mary-Margaret was at his side in an instant, but just as quickly was staring at Hook with horrified eyes, her hand supporting a dazed and frightened David's neck and he pulled himself into a sitting position. Regina took a step backwards, her palms filling with fire. "What the hell was that, pirate?"

His hand trembled as he stared down at it, and his chest heaved with breath that he drew in through clenched teeth. He felt the power coursing through him, he practically vibrated with it, and he itched to do more, to show the Queen what real power looked like, to snuff out her paltry dark fire and set her ablaze. The putrid darkness choked him and he blinked and the power was gone, dulled to a humming in the back of his skull that only seemed to exacerbate his pounding headache. His mouth went dry and he ran.

The sea. He needed to get to the sea.

The streets were mercifully barren of townspeople, the docks even more so as he stumbled towards his ship. He fell to his knees at the sight of the harbor, the endless sea stretching out before him, the moonlight shining down on the waves. He breathed deep, filling his lungs with salted air. The sea would calm him. The sea would keep the Darkness filling him at bay. Emma knew that, that's why she bought that house, their house, with the view of the harbor and their whole future stretching out before them…

 _But she betrayed you._

She saved my life, he told the voice. Emma loves me, she needed me there with her, I forgive her, I will always forgive her…

 _Even for this? You asked her to let you go,_ it reminded him. _She disrespected you. She made you this._

Emma chooses to see the best in me. I can fight this, like she did-

 _She gave in._

I can fight it.

 _You can't._

He wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to drink until the burning in his throat outmatched the burning in his heart. He wanted to rip his own heart out of his chest, wanted to take the dead, rotted black thing and crush it between his fingers until all the tar spilled out… There had been so little darkness in it, when last he looked. A pulsing center, a reminder of his storied past, a milestone marker in how far he'd come since meeting Emma. The good man he had been-

 _A lie. A farce. You've always been a villain. The notorious Captain Hook, scourge of the seas, mercenary of Neverland, blackguard and scoundrel. Hardly worth saving. Not then. Not even now._

"Emma will save me," he whispered into the night. He itched, the Darkness seeped over his skin and settled into his bones and he was so, so aware of it now, this malicious force that had been preying on his mind for weeks, ever since they had gotten back from Camelot, but he had not had the mind to see it. The power hummed in his head and in his hands, and his heart pulsated with the Darkness and his head hurt, _gods, it hurts so much how did Emma deal with this I'm not strong enough I'm not –_ "Emma will save me," he pleaded.

 _I love her. She'll save me._

 _She betrayed us._

 _She loves me._

 _I hate her._

 _We love her._

 _We will have her, or she will die._

 _She betrayed us._

 _We hate her. We love her._

 _Kill her._

Killian cried out, pressing the heel of his hand into his forehead, trying to alleviate the throbbing of the Darkness, and his eyes burned with tears he would not shed. Emma loved him. He loved Emma. She would save him, he tried to remember that, this one important thing, as the Darkness swallowed him and Killian breathed a sigh of relief and closed his eyes.

The Dark One opened them.

* * *

 _May I be the first to say- Holy shit._

 _I am not going to survive this arc._

 _God, I love this show._

 _Feel free to vent your feelings in the comments; I know I need to._


End file.
